Never enough time

Do you often feel like you don’t have enough time? You’d like to do many things, but there isn’t time to do everything at a relaxed pace.

For many of us, our natural response to experiencing a lack of time is to start rushing. Here’s what it looks like:

You show up late for appointments.

You cram so many activities into a given time period that you have no downtime between them.

You worry about completing all the tasks on your to-list.

When you’re doing one thing, you’re already thinking about the next thing.

You find yourself having to make painful tradeoffs between doing all the things you want to do, on the one hand, and sleep, exercise, and rest on the other.

Feeling out of time and rushing to try to compensate for it is unsustainable. It will build up an unhealthy level of stress over time.

To reduce the feeling of running out of time, and the stress that comes with it, you might first try to rush a little less. You can move quickly without rushing. So rushing less does not mean you’ll get less done.

However, while you will feel better if you rush less, doing so is a form of addressing symptoms, rather than causes. If you want to tackle the root of the problem, you probably want to say no more often. By saying “no” more often and taking on fewer tasks and responsibilities, you create more downtime.

When do you experience a lack of time?

Yours,

— Peter

P.S. Do you find yourself incapable of enjoying rest? Everybody needs some downtime. It doesn’t have to come in the form of laying in a hammock on the beach. But you do want to give your brain some time off. If that’s a challenge for you, I highly recommend spending ten minutes on a fabulous meditation called “Do nothing” in the 10% Happier app.

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